Clarecast is an agentic AI platform that delivers predictive intelligence across people, customers, markets, and prospects, helping organizations gain forward-looking insight for planning and growth. Built on Databricks from Day 1, the platform continuously scores more than 18 million companies across growth, hiring, and market signals and has achieved 80%+ headcount forecast accuracy. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Clarecast CEO and Co-Founder Bradley Taylor to learn more.
Bradley Taylor’s Background
When asked about his background and the experiences that eventually led him to Clarecast, Taylor shared:
My career has been built around one recurring problem: helping organizations make better decisions with better data. Over 25 years, I’ve worked at the intersection of employee benefits, insurance technology, and revenue operations.
In 2004, I founded Next Generation Enrollment, a benefits technology company that grew to serve more than 900 clients nationwide. We were acquired by PlanSource in 2017, which was subsequently acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2019.
I stayed on through both transitions and eventually served as Chief Strategy Officer, which gave me direct exposure to what investors actually demand from high-growth companies, not just growth, but predictability.
How Clarecast Started
When asked how the idea for Clarecast came together, Taylor explained:
I was tired of the feeling that comes from uncertainty and surprises, and with that, wasted time. In our power years, when we have the most earnings potential, time is just so important.
It became clear that to truly max out an opportunity from an earnings point of view, you have to be in an amazing business. Then you have to illustrate to others that you’re in an amazing business!
You have to be able to tell the story and the why behind every key decision. To do that, you have to have data, especially forward-looking data, in order to explain the company.
All this matters so much because investors and corporate boards reward companies that are predictable through higher valuations, increased autonomy, bigger budgets, the ability to do inorganic M&A, etc.
The feeling of winning, of certainty, of conviction, of how to deliver maximum value to a customer, and so on, that is what we wanted to create and that is what we are building with our predictive intelligence solution at Clarecast.
Building In Grand Rapids
When asked why it was important to build Clarecast in Grand Rapids, Taylor said:
West Michigan is home. I grew up here, graduated from East Grand Rapids High School, and went to Miami University in Ohio for college.
After graduating, my wife and I spent time in the Detroit area, where I started my career in group benefits with Unum.
My co-founders also call Grand Rapids home, even though our Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist, Marvin Pohl, Ph.D., relocated from Germany! When we launched Clarecast, there was never a real question about where we’d build our team and the platform.
There’s a persistent assumption in the tech industry that serious enterprise AI work only happens on the coasts. We really feel that Grand Rapids has the talent to support what we’re building. We’re proud to be doing this work here.
Developing Local Talent
When asked what has been most meaningful about building Clarecast so far, Taylor reflected:
Beyond building a platform that gives our clients genuine conviction in their ability to plan, grow, and protect their organization, the most meaningful part has been watching local talent step up.
We established a relationship with the College of Computing at Grand Valley State University, and right now, 9 of 16 on our team consists of recent graduates or current students.
That partnership has been central to how we’ve grown. We intentionally recruit, screen, and mentor from that pipeline because the relationship is genuinely symbiotic. They get real-world experience, and we get sharp, motivated people who grow with the company.
Core Products And Features
When asked about Clarecast’s core products and features, Taylor detailed:
Clarecast is an agentic AI platform that delivers predictive intelligence across people, customers, markets, and prospects.
We built on Databricks from Day 1, and the platform continuously scores more than 18 million companies on growth, hiring, and market signals, achieving 80%+ headcount forecast accuracy.
Our clients use that intelligence across three core workflows.
Customer Intelligence analyzes an organization’s entire book as a strategic portfolio, forecasting which accounts are growing and which are at risk of churn.
Our ICP Development product builds a living, data-driven, future-focused ideal customer profile that updates as market conditions shift.
And we help a customer surface net-new segment opportunities and market expansion opportunities using forward-looking TAM analysis and workforce signals.
Clarecast also received an honorable mention in the 2026 Built-On Databricks Startup Challenge.
Moving Beyond Lagging Indicators
When asked about significant challenges in the company’s sector and how Clarecast has addressed them, Taylor noted:
The core challenge in our space is that workforce and market data are almost always lagging indicators.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report is widely relied upon, but it’s backward-looking by design. It tells you what already happened, not what’s coming.
Solving that meant building models that could identify signals before changes occur. We aggregated enormous datasets and trained proprietary machine learning models to surface early indicators of workforce shifts.
We recently published our findings in a report called “The Quiet Restructuring,” which documents an AI-driven workforce contraction playing out at U.S. companies that isn’t yet reflected in official labor statistics.
The gap between what the data shows and what the headline numbers report is significant.
Major Company Milestones
When asked about Clarecast’s most significant milestones, Taylor said:
Publishing “The Quiet Restructuring” stands out. It validated our predictive models and demonstrated the kind of actionable insight our platform is designed to surface. Getting that work into the market was meaningful.
On the operational side, building Clarecast as an entirely self-funded company in West Michigan is something we’re proud of.
The Quiet Restructuring
When asked about the key findings from “The Quiet Restructuring” report, Taylor explained:
The report identifies a pattern of workforce contraction playing out at scale across U.S. companies, one that is unlikely to appear in official labor statistics, at least not yet.
We defined this pattern through four observable signals: a complex technology stack of 20 or more tools, a flat or shrinking workforce over the prior 12 months, a forecasted headcount decline of at least 5% over the coming year, and a VP-level or higher departure within the past 30 to 60 days.
When all four are present together, it’s a strong indicator of deliberate, quiet restructuring.
Our data found that nearly 10,000 companies currently display a broad at-risk profile, while more than 1,300 companies show signs of a full Quiet Restructuring.
Those numbers are not showing up in the headline jobs data.
Customer Growth
When asked about Clarecast’s recent customer growth, Taylor shared:
We’re deliberate about who we partner with. We want clients who can grow with us and help shape the product over time.
Our beachhead segments are insurance carriers and benefits brokers who price and retain based on employee counts, B2B SaaS platforms with usage-based pricing, and private equity or M&A teams that need forward signals before a deal surfaces publicly.
But the demand has extended well beyond those verticals. We’re now serving clients across more than 17 industries: universities, economic development organizations, media companies, staffing firms, and others.
The underlying need is the same regardless of sector: know what’s coming before your competition does.
Market Opportunity
When discussing the total addressable market Clarecast is pursuing, Taylor outlined:
Every B2B sector needs accurate forecasting, and that’s ultimately what we provide.
While insurance, B2B SaaS, and private equity are our primary focus areas, our intelligence is also being used by universities, economic development organizations, media companies, and nonprofits.
Any organization that needs to predict growth, identify market expansion opportunities, or map industry transitions is part of our TAM.
The common thread is forward-looking intelligence. We are remaining focused on the beachhead customers. However, we realize the TAM for what we’re doing is massive.
Competitive Differentiation
When asked what differentiates Clarecast from the competition, Taylor emphasized:
We want companies to have the “Why” behind every decision. To do that, you have to have forward-looking data and can’t just use gut feel.
The people with experience and modern tools become trained assassins, and that’s what we’re building.
Just using AI to get public data isn’t enough. Everyone has that.
To think differently, you need a lot of data that isn’t publicly available, and you have to know how to put it to use. We bring this to life.
Future Goals
When discussing Clarecast’s future goals, Taylor concluded:
We expect to continue growing our team over the next year, hiring across technical, data, and go-to-market functions.
On the product side, we’ll keep training our predictive models and creating new ones to deliver more granular intelligence at the company, industry, and geography levels.
But the bigger goal is simpler than any of that. We want our clients spending more time winning and less time trying to figure out what’s going on.
Too much time gets burned on research, guesswork, and chasing the wrong thing. We want to eliminate that friction entirely.
Lastly, we want to be known as a company that genuinely cares, about the product, about the outcomes, our team, and about the people we work with.
Clarecast. Why guess, see it coming.
Additional Information
– Clarecast recently received an honorable mention in the 2026 Built-On Databricks Startup Challenge
